Satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement.
Satire is found in many artistic forms of expression, including internet memes, literature, plays, commentary, music, film and television shows, and media such as lyrics.
Robert Elliott writes: As soon as a noun enters the domain of metaphor, as one modern scholar has pointed out, it clamours for extension; and satura (which had had no verbal, adverbial, or adjectival forms) was immediately broadened by appropriation from the Greek word for "satyr" (satyros) and its derivatives.
[24] Institutions like the ritual clowns, by giving expression to the antisocial tendencies, represent a safety valve which re-establishes equilibrium and health in the collective imaginary, which are jeopardized by the repressive aspects of society.
Due to cultural differences, they disassociated comedy from Greek dramatic representation and instead identified it with Arabic poetic themes and forms, such as hija (satirical poetry).
He wrote the Resaleh-ye Delgosha, as well as Akhlaq al-Ashraf ("Ethics of the Aristocracy") and the famous humorous fable Masnavi Mush-O-Gorbeh (Mouse and Cat), which was a political satire.
In the Early Middle Ages, examples of satire were the songs by Goliards or vagants now best known as an anthology called Carmina Burana and made famous as texts of a composition by the 20th-century composer Carl Orff.
Other examples of Renaissance satire include Till Eulenspiegel, Reynard the Fox, Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff (1494), Erasmus's Moriae Encomium (1509), Thomas More's Utopia (1516), and Carajicomedia (1519).
Casaubon discovered and published Quintilian's writing and presented the original meaning of the term (satira, not satyr), and the sense of wittiness (reflecting the "dishfull of fruits") became more important again.
[88][page needed] The success of his work combined with a national mood of disillusion in the last years of Elizabeth's reign triggered an avalanche of satire—much of it less conscious of classical models than Hall's — until the fashion was brought to an abrupt stop by censorship.
Pope does not actively attack the self-important pomp of the British aristocracy, but rather presents it in such a way that gives the reader a new perspective from which to easily view the actions in the story as foolish and ridiculous.
Daniel Defoe pursued a more journalistic type of satire, being famous for his The True-Born Englishman which mocks xenophobic patriotism, and The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters—advocating religious toleration by means of an ironical exaggeration of the highly intolerant attitudes of his time.
[105] With his satirical works calling the king (George III), prime ministers and generals (especially Napoleon) to account, Gillray's wit and keen sense of the ridiculous made him the pre-eminent cartoonist of the era.
In fact, in The Yeomen of the Guard, a jester is given lines that paint a very neat picture of the method and purpose of the satirist, and might almost be taken as a statement of Gilbert's own intent: Novelists such as Charles Dickens (1812–1870) often used passages of satiric writing in their treatment of social issues.
Osborne wrote mostly in the Juvenalian mode over a wide range of topics mostly centered on British government's and landlords' mistreatment of poor farm workers and field laborers.
Twain's younger contemporary Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) gained notoriety as a cynic, pessimist and black humorist with his dark, bitterly ironic stories, many set during the American Civil War, which satirized the limitations of human perception and reason.
[22] In 20th-century literature, satire was used by English authors such as Aldous Huxley (1930s) and George Orwell (1940s), which under the inspiration of Zamyatin's Russian 1921 novel We, made serious and even frightening commentaries on the dangers of the sweeping social changes taking place throughout Europe.
This baton was also carried by the original National Lampoon magazine, edited by Doug Kenney and Henry Beard and featuring blistering satire written by Michael O'Donoghue, P.J.
Satirical web series and sites include Emmy-nominated Honest Trailers (2012–),[128] Internet phenomena-themed Encyclopedia Dramatica (2004–),[129] Uncyclopedia (2005–),[130] self-proclaimed "America's Finest News Source" The Onion (1988–).
In doing so, he demonstrates the principle of modern American political satire: the ridicule of the actions of politicians and other public figures by taking all their statements and purported beliefs to their furthest (supposedly) logical conclusion, thus revealing their perceived hypocrisy or absurdity.
As well as the purely humorous effect of this sort of thing, they often strongly criticise various phenomena in politics, economic life, religion and many other aspects of society, and thus qualify as satirical.
[139] US community organizer and author of Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky, stated, 'Humour is essential to a successful tactician, for the most potent weapons known to [people] are satire and ridicule.
[citation needed] Much later in history, in the weeks following 9/11 the American public at large found works of satire to be in bad taste and not appropriate for the social climate at the time.
In 1599, the Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift and the Bishop of London Richard Bancroft, whose offices had the function of licensing books for publication in England, issued a decree banning verse satire.
In 2006 British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen released Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, a "mockumentary" that satirized everyone, from high society to frat boys.
[161] On December 29, 2009, Samsung sued Mike Breen, and the Korea Times for $1 million, claiming criminal defamation over a satirical column published on Christmas Day, 2009.
[164] Kent Police rebuffed the request to open an investigation, and the BBC released a statement, "Britain has a proud tradition of satire, and everyone knows that the contributors on Have I Got News for You regularly make jokes at the expense of politicians of all parties.
[165][166] Among the eminent examples are: nella storia della nostra cultura, la satira ha realizzato il bisogno popolare di irridere e dissacrare il gotha politico ed economico, le cui reazioni punitive non sono certo state condizionate da critiche estetiche, ma dalla tolleranza o intolleranza caratterizzanti in quel momento storico la società e i suoi governanti.
Beyond mere entertainment, satire's humor appealed to and exercised public opinion, drawing audiences into new practices of representative government.A surprising variety of societies have allowed certain persons the freedom to mock other individuals and social institutions in rituals.
Les Koyemshis représentent ce que M. Caillois nomme le « Sacré de transgression ».Déjà Cazeneuve (2) [Les dieux dansent à Cibola] avait mis auparavant en relief, dans la Société « apollinienne » des Zuñi, l'institution et le symbolisme saturnal des clowns Koyemshis, véritable soupape de sûreté « dionysienne ».Nella storia del teatro si ritrova sempre questo conflitto in cui si scontrano impegno e disimpegno ... grottesco, satirico e lazzo con sfottò.
